Responding to comments
Jan. 27th, 2015 12:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackWhen someone responds to something you said (online or IRL) but not to what you think you said, but rather something vaguely related to it (because you wrote too quickly or they were reading too quickly), how do you respond constructively?
It always FEELS as if they're rejecting what what you were trying to say, and I have to try hard to suppress the urge to argue them down. When I know that that would actually be meaningless to them, and they're thinking "why did you say [thoguhtless thing]".
In some ways I find it easier IRL because the conversation moves on, I can make a bid to miss out the long digression of people arguing past each other, and say what I said a different way, or ask them for clarification, and the conversation can proceed from there. Whereas, if it's an online comment, it can itch at me, wanting to rebut an apparently nonsensical comment on what I was trying to say, but it's harder to channel into a constructive conversation, because I don't know how to say "what do you think about [better phrasing of what I was trying to say]" without sounding critical or patronising to them; and without feeling forced to take a side on what they actually said, even if I feel it's a red herring.
It always FEELS as if they're rejecting what what you were trying to say, and I have to try hard to suppress the urge to argue them down. When I know that that would actually be meaningless to them, and they're thinking "why did you say [thoguhtless thing]".
In some ways I find it easier IRL because the conversation moves on, I can make a bid to miss out the long digression of people arguing past each other, and say what I said a different way, or ask them for clarification, and the conversation can proceed from there. Whereas, if it's an online comment, it can itch at me, wanting to rebut an apparently nonsensical comment on what I was trying to say, but it's harder to channel into a constructive conversation, because I don't know how to say "what do you think about [better phrasing of what I was trying to say]" without sounding critical or patronising to them; and without feeling forced to take a side on what they actually said, even if I feel it's a red herring.